Recording - August 2018 - 58
u
o
Y
|
l
GIr
Know
It's. . .
A Lot More Than
You RealIze!
The hot seat
Of the twelve or so people that are full-time live programmers
in the US, Devine Evans is the most called-upon by artists in the
Top 40. Over his 20-year history in the business, he's toured with
Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, and Justin Timberlake, to name a few.
In the summer of 2011, I had the pleasure of assisting Devine
during a leg of Nicki Minaj's slot on Britney Spears' Femme
Fatale Tour. While it was one of the most exhilarating experiences
of my life, it was also profoundly educational, because the
thousands of adoring fans don't know that just behind the curtain
is the one person keeping the show from going off the rails. The
live programmer is the (literally) unsung hero of any major tour,
the missing link between an artist's records and their live show.
Devine's job starts the day that he's hired, often weeks or months
before the artist sets foot in a rehearsal studio. His first order of
business is to acquire every piece of album material he can get his
hands on. "The best way to start is to gather up all of the artist's stems.
That's either going to be from the label or the guy who mixed it."
Stems, if the term isn't familiar, is what engineers call the
multitrack audio files. "The best way for me is to get every single
sound separated. I don't want stems that are merged together
already, because on a PA... a cowbell can be a weapon. We
may need to turn that down. We keep our drums together, our
guitars together, our background vocals together, effects like
risers and explosions... they're grouped and assigned to outputs. But inside Pro Tools, everything remains separate. If there's
20 instruments creating the drum and rhythm section, then I have
20 tracks in my session that are drum and rhythm."
Those stems are then loaded into a DAW, where a grueling
process of editing takes place under the supervision of the
artist's Music Director. Everything from musical transitions and
medleys to sound effects and wardrobe changes gets created
and even re-recorded here.
What's created next is probably the most interesting and
controversial piece of it all, the stuff of Ashlee Simpson's nightmares:
the ghost vocal. Simply put, a ghost vocal is a pre-recorded
vocal take that's kept on hand in case the artist needs to use it. In
58
RECORDING August 2018
By Samantha Blanchard with Devine Evans
What really happens when artists lip sync-and why
would you ever want to consider doing that for your shows?
ost of us remember Milli Vanilli and Ashlee Simpson,
their careers ruined by mishaps with playback systems
that exposed their lip syncing. While the public may be quick to
judge an artist for not singing live, they might not know how
much actually goes into a live performance these days, especially
a televised one.
They might not know that over the last 20 years, everyone
from Rihanna to Rascal Flatts uses playback in live performances.
Further, even though the post-traumatic stress of these very public
disasters runs deep in the minds of the concert-going populace,
they might not know that without recorded playback, many of
their favorite artists wouldn't be able to perform at all.
M
some cases it's the original lead from the record, while in others
it's a vocal recorded hours before the show at the concert venue.
If the performer is a little under the weather or has too much choreography to sing a particular section, out pops the ghost vocal.
What you hear onstage is almost always a combination of
ghost and live, controlled through the use of a something called
a ducker. As Devine explains, "You take your lead vocal stem,
and you take an audio print of just tone, and you edit the tone
to match the exact phrasing of your recorded vocal performance.
Then you assign that tone to an output-let's say it's output 8.
That goes to your Front Of House engineer, who puts a
compressor on the microphone channel and engages the sidechain function to receive output 8. When the tone that you edited
hits that compressor, it turns the mic off."
That ghost, along with every other aspect of the music, can then
be muted or unmuted as the programmer sees fit, allowing them
to handle any unforeseen emergency that may occur. "I had this
happen in a show: one of our piano players celebrated a little too
hard the night before the show, and right before we were about
to go into a solo piano song, he started vomiting uncontrollably.
Whenever I saw this was happening, because I had the file, I was
able to unmute the piano and keep the show going."
Beyond the musIc
The live programming session controls more than music, vocals,
effects and transitions. Things like band communications, lighting
cues, and even the time code that ignites pyrotechnics are also built
in, meaning the live rig serves as the unofficial "brain" of any show.
"I have all these custom band slates which are basically your
count-ins, and song titles, and song cues... it will be like 'Hook, 2,
3, 4'. Sometimes we create an artist slate where the artist needs
cues. Where the singer starts the song, we'll have a pitch reference
which also goes down the slate line. So we might play the chord
to give them the key." These slate cues, while accessible to the
FOH engineer, are only engaged by the monitoring engineer and
sent to the in-ear mix, creating an elaborate communication stream
between everyone on stage that the audience never sees or hears.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2018
REVIEWS
Ears On: Focal Clear Professional.
Reviewed & Revisited: Daking Mic Pre II.
GIK Acoustics Gotham Quadratic Diffuser.
ART RM5 Active Studio Monitor.
IK Multimedia iRig Keys I/O.
Yamaha EAD10.
Soundware Showcase: Spitfire Audio LABS.
Vanatoo Transparent Zero Monitors.
Ears On: beyerdynamic DT 770 STUDIO.
Roland Rubix24.
Kludge Audio 506 Equalizer and 510 Transwarmer.
Once Over—Reviews In Brief.
FEATURES
10 Tips For A Successful Live Recording.
Studio 101. Part 8: Mixing, Part 1—Signal Flow.
“Girl You Know It’s...” A Lot More Than You Realize!
Live Orchestra Recording.
REGULARS
Fade In.
Talkback.
Fast Forward
Readers' Tracks
Fade Out.
Advertiser Index.
Recording - August 2018 - 1
Recording - August 2018 - Cover1
Recording - August 2018 - Cover2
Recording - August 2018 - 1
Recording - August 2018 - 2
Recording - August 2018 - 3
Recording - August 2018 - Fade In.
Recording - August 2018 - 5
Recording - August 2018 - REGULARS
Recording - August 2018 - 7
Recording - August 2018 - Talkback.
Recording - August 2018 - 9
Recording - August 2018 - Fast Forward
Recording - August 2018 - 11
Recording - August 2018 - 12
Recording - August 2018 - 13
Recording - August 2018 - 14
Recording - August 2018 - 15
Recording - August 2018 - 16
Recording - August 2018 - 17
Recording - August 2018 - 18
Recording - August 2018 - 19
Recording - August 2018 - Ears On: Focal Clear Professional.
Recording - August 2018 - 21
Recording - August 2018 - 22
Recording - August 2018 - 23
Recording - August 2018 - Reviewed & Revisited: Daking Mic Pre II.
Recording - August 2018 - 25
Recording - August 2018 - GIK Acoustics Gotham Quadratic Diffuser.
Recording - August 2018 - 27
Recording - August 2018 - 28
Recording - August 2018 - 29
Recording - August 2018 - ART RM5 Active Studio Monitor.
Recording - August 2018 - 31
Recording - August 2018 - IK Multimedia iRig Keys I/O.
Recording - August 2018 - 33
Recording - August 2018 - Yamaha EAD10.
Recording - August 2018 - 35
Recording - August 2018 - Soundware Showcase: Spitfire Audio LABS.
Recording - August 2018 - 37
Recording - August 2018 - Studio 101. Part 8: Mixing, Part 1—Signal Flow.
Recording - August 2018 - 39
Recording - August 2018 - 40
Recording - August 2018 - 41
Recording - August 2018 - Vanatoo Transparent Zero Monitors.
Recording - August 2018 - 43
Recording - August 2018 - 44
Recording - August 2018 - 45
Recording - August 2018 - Ears On: beyerdynamic DT 770 STUDIO.
Recording - August 2018 - 47
Recording - August 2018 - Roland Rubix24.
Recording - August 2018 - 49
Recording - August 2018 - Kludge Audio 506 Equalizer and 510 Transwarmer.
Recording - August 2018 - 51
Recording - August 2018 - 52
Recording - August 2018 - 53
Recording - August 2018 - 54
Recording - August 2018 - 55
Recording - August 2018 - 56
Recording - August 2018 - 57
Recording - August 2018 - “Girl You Know It’s...” A Lot More Than You Realize!
Recording - August 2018 - 59
Recording - August 2018 - Once Over—Reviews In Brief.
Recording - August 2018 - 61
Recording - August 2018 - Live Orchestra Recording.
Recording - August 2018 - 63
Recording - August 2018 - 64
Recording - August 2018 - 65
Recording - August 2018 - Readers' Tracks
Recording - August 2018 - Advertiser Index.
Recording - August 2018 - 68
Recording - August 2018 - 69
Recording - August 2018 - 70
Recording - August 2018 - 71
Recording - August 2018 - Fade Out.
Recording - August 2018 - Cover3
Recording - August 2018 - Cover4
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